Student Stars
Otterbein students’ scripts take the stage By Sarah Grace Smith
T
his June, Otterbein University student playwrights had the opportunity to see their scripts come to life through the Dublin Community Recreation Center’s Abbey Theater of Dublin in its summer production, the Otterbein Playwrights Collective. Otterbein students in assistant professor Jeremy Llorence’s playwriting and scriptwriting class submitted a one-act piece for their final project and the Abbey Theater selected three to produce and bring to the stage. Llorence says that too often, students never pick up their final projects again after they are submitted. Through this initiative, he hopes students will feel inspired to see their pieces through to production. “The main goal for me … was to have students really experience (a script being produced),” says Llorence. “In order for a (script) to become what you want it to be, it has to be produced either on stage or screen.” The three selected playwrights, Niah, Lucy Clark and Whitney Burton, all took different approaches to the class and the final project. Niah went into the class with an experimental mindset. She wrote her play, The Boy in Neon, by incorporating Gothic and supernatural elements into a contemporary story. Niah says she submitted her piece with zero expectations. “I was cautiously optimistic. … I thought, ‘It probably won’t be a big deal,’” she says. “And then I was wrong. I was glad to be wrong.” Niah Clark, primarily a true crime prose writer, felt out of her comfort zone in Llorence’s class. She pushed herself to write a contemporary realism screenplay, something completely new to her. “(The story’s content) was something that I was familiar with personally, but 24 September/October 2021
not in terms of writing,” says Clark. As primarily a prose fiction and poetry writer, Burton had never written a script before. However, following the success of their script for the Otterbein Playwrights Collective, Burton says they hope to write more plays in the future. Jeremy Llorence and Lucy Clark “When I write, it usually is somewhere in the comedy realm,” they say. “I tried to keep With Llorence’s guidance, Burton that while adding some more drama than I focused on creating a backstory for each of usually would, as I felt it might balance the their characters to give them more depth. tone with the story I wanted to tell.” “ L l o re n c e d i d a n a m a z i n g j o b Llorence formatted his class by breaking introducing me to a lot of new ways to it up into two halves. The first half of the think about writing,” they say. semester, he focused on teaching the form of The writers were amazed to see their work playwriting and screenwriting. The students brought to life by Abbey Theater actors. worked on short scenes and scripts. Clark says she experienced different During the second half of the semester, feelings seeing her work on stage as comLlorence encouraged the students to pull pared to the feeling she gets when complettheir new skills together to focus on the ing a prose piece. final project. Students could revise and “I got goosebumps a few times,” she combine previous works into one story or says. “I was like, ‘I wrote these things and create something new entirely. (the actors) are saying them and being Each of the three writers the characters.’” says they were blown away by After the success of this year’s Otterbein the new skills they learned in Playwrights Collective, Llorence is eager to Llorence’s class. repeat the project again next year. Niah mastered avoiding “I’m really excited that, for the first time “pizza talk,” or conversations through, we had such strong writers, such without purpose, such as what strong actors and some great directors,” type of pizza to order. She says he says. “(Repeating the program) is 100 she learned that every word percent the goal.” should count and move the plot forward. Sarah Grace Smith is an editorial assistant. Clark felt like she had to Feedback welcome at feedback@ condense a lot of her thoughts cityscenemediagroup.com. from prose to screenplays, and that she learned how to make sure every detail was To read more about the important. students' plays, visit “It’s a lot of thought and detail put into it,” says Clark. “More than I’ve had to www.westervillemagazine.com. contemplate with prose.” www.westervillemagazine.com
